Far from me to engage in a political discussion here - for I'd be doing it in my customary gracious and forgiving ways, plus I don't see the moderators allowing it for too long - but I'd like to make a point which is at least related to what we do here:
I used to have my own broadcast as talent/producer on the national public radio here in Athens (say BBC 3 equivalent - a parody of it), and I have to say that I agree with Paul's blanket assessment of who runs the programming and who the target audiences are, as well as with Jasen's notion of their glorification of government centralization and the seemingly endless supply of money those "lefties" have access to. A lot of these "Marxists" in Greece (both on public radio and TV) have made untold millions with the blessings of the pestilential government we've had during the last 40 years. My salary was also disproportionate for Greek standards, during my brief tenure, and I saw incredible things happen around me while contracted there.
However, I have also lived in Australia for a very long time, and I must say that the best programming by far on radio and TV in both countries came from those public stations. Although I admit that in both countries those stations are ran by the fringe elements of society - thus there's a demographic misrepresentation in their ranks - there is no way that the vile, conspiratorially decadent private stations would ever pay to broadcast any quality program, let alone produce it. The private stations are the auspices of game-shows, sports, women's sit-coms and dramas, reality TV where retards watch twirps sleep and peep into their toilet habits, "talent"-shows, top10 crap, Hollywood movies, and endless commercials. The only thing they share with public radio/TV on a day-to-day basis is political commentary. All the documentaries, the concerts (classical), the great investigative reports (tainted red I agree), opera, the theatre, the great interviews, the old/great films, they're all audible/viewable exclusively on public radio/TV - 2MBS FM in Sydney being a marvellous exception, I hope it's still running. I think Dietz meant that we are all going to lose the quality programming that BBC offers if it is ever privatized. Who is going to take it up?